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Van der Valk #2
Because of the Cats
Alternate cover edition for ISBN 0140022821
"Chief Inspector Piet Van der Valk of the Amsterdam police has a teenage gang on his hands: they are coming into Amsterdam from out-of-town, and they are remarkably professional. They leave behind a trail of wanton damage, senseless brutality, and rape, and one piece of possible evidence - 'the cats won't like it'." "As usual, Van der Valk's approach to the case is both unorthodox and intensely human. He immerses himself in the lives of his suspects, and in the small-town atmosphere of the seaside resort in which they live, and cracks the facade of respectability behind which they hide. Under his obsessive probing the mystery is eventually unravelled, but not before there has been a final explosion of violence as the cats act to defend themselves."--BOOK JACKET.
"Chief Inspector Piet Van der Valk of the Amsterdam police has a teenage gang on his hands: they are coming into Amsterdam from out-of-town, and they are remarkably professional. They leave behind a trail of wanton damage, senseless brutality, and rape, and one piece of possible evidence - 'the cats won't like it'." "As usual, Van der Valk's approach to the case is both unorthodox and intensely human. He immerses himself in the lives of his suspects, and in the small-town atmosphere of the seaside resort in which they live, and cracks the facade of respectability behind which they hide. Under his obsessive probing the mystery is eventually unravelled, but not before there has been a final explosion of violence as the cats act to defend themselves."--BOOK JACKET.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1963
7 people are currently reading
244 people want to read
About the author
Nicolas Freeling
86 books59 followersNicolas Freeling born Nicolas Davidson, (March 3, 1927 - July 20, 2003) was a British crime novelist, best known as the author of the Van der Valk series of detective novels which were adapted for transmission on the British ITV network by Thames Television during the 1970s.
Freeling was born in London, but travelled widely, and ended his life at his long-standing home at Grandfontaine to the west of Strasbourg. He had followed a variety of occupations, including the armed services and the catering profession. He began writing during a three-week prison sentence, after being convicted of stealing some food.[citation needed]
Freeling's The King of the Rainy Country received a 1967 Edgar Award, from the Mystery Writers of America, for Best Novel. He also won the Gold Dagger of the Crime Writers' Association, and France's Grand Prix de Littérature Policière.
From Wikipedia
Series:
* Van Der Valk
* Henri Castang
Freeling was born in London, but travelled widely, and ended his life at his long-standing home at Grandfontaine to the west of Strasbourg. He had followed a variety of occupations, including the armed services and the catering profession. He began writing during a three-week prison sentence, after being convicted of stealing some food.[citation needed]
Freeling's The King of the Rainy Country received a 1967 Edgar Award, from the Mystery Writers of America, for Best Novel. He also won the Gold Dagger of the Crime Writers' Association, and France's Grand Prix de Littérature Policière.
From Wikipedia
Series:
* Van Der Valk
* Henri Castang
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
July 28, 2022
This book grew on me as the story progressed.
Initially, the story didn't grab me as the police appeared to know who the culprits were very quickly, but it was the reasons why the culprits acted in the way they did that was the fascinating part of the story.
Van der Valk is an interesting character, not a conventional policeman who befriends whores and has the mother of one of the suspects throwing herself at him as she needs 'consoling'.
The action all takes place in the town of Bloemendaal aan Zee a pleasant place of modern buildings, high incomes, and little crime. That is until some terrifying robberies occur where the victim's homes are turned upside down in a frenzy of mindless violence. This is when Van der Valk is called in from nearby Amsterdam to solve the case.
Initially, the story didn't grab me as the police appeared to know who the culprits were very quickly, but it was the reasons why the culprits acted in the way they did that was the fascinating part of the story.
Van der Valk is an interesting character, not a conventional policeman who befriends whores and has the mother of one of the suspects throwing herself at him as she needs 'consoling'.
The action all takes place in the town of Bloemendaal aan Zee a pleasant place of modern buildings, high incomes, and little crime. That is until some terrifying robberies occur where the victim's homes are turned upside down in a frenzy of mindless violence. This is when Van der Valk is called in from nearby Amsterdam to solve the case.
November 27, 2017
I’m not aware of them anymore, but the Van der Valk stories used to be admired...and there was a popular TV spinoff. This is a police procedural: it’s not really a mystery. A gang of youths have been carrying out robberies in Amsterdam and then perpetrate a gang rape. Van der Valk takes the case, suspects the crimes were carried out by rich kids from out of town. Largely by luck he begins to have suspicions about some youths in a rich coastal new town: the story follows his finding evidence, understanding the details of the case, confronting the boys, etc. If you like this sort of thing it is well constructed, although there is a lot of explanation at the end clearing up all the loose ends. Van der Valk is constantly registered as normal: he has none of the eccentricities that mark so many literary detectives...or, rather, his eccentricity and gimmick is that he is Dutch. There is none of the angst that overtook later detectives: no broken marriages: his wife happily looks after their child and cooks the dinners. Like Maigret, he is one of those detectives who has the instinctive ability to read character and the world is split between genuine people and the phonies – and Van der Valk is no snob, if he befriends a bluff successful businessman he is also at ease with the local prostitute. But then, during the investigation, there is a strange passage: Van der Valk is questioning one of the phonies, the mother of one of the suspects, and it is stated that it would do her good if she was raped by three sailors – I’m not sure whose voice this is, Van der Valk’s or the author’s, but they are probably the same. As one of the crimes under investigation is a gang rape it seems strange to wish this upon someone...maybe the novel is about to move into a darker area, undermining the line between the lawful and the criminal...but no, it seems a genuine comment. There are a whole series of attitudes underlying the book: they aren’t investigated, they are just taken for granted: I suppose they are the attitudes of an English, well educated, middle class, liberal, male intellectual in the early 1960s...and many of them are a little unnerving. Despite the positive portrayal of the prostitute, sexism is the norm, misogyny not far away: it is presumed women will keep to their places; the boys’ girls (the ‘cats’ of the title) come off worse than the boys; it’s not a theme that the book deals with, but the women are disturbing...the book presumes that we, the readers, are disturbed by women. Behind the gang there is an older man who is finally exposed as emotionally infantile: he mixes fuzzy mysticism and National Socialism...but one of the signs that he hasn’t grown up is that he likes jazz: in Van der Valk’s world grownups appreciate classical music...God knows what Van der Valk and Freeling thought of rock music and the coming generations who listen to it.
October 15, 2018
I actually liked the writing quite a bit, but was too often annoyed by mindless misogynistic asides. Would have been 4 stars without the sexism.
May 12, 2018
I'm beginning to enjoy this series, with its colorful descriptions, philosophical tone, and the interesting character of Chief Inspector van der Valk, who travels to the pleasant and prosperous town of Bloemendaal, where a group of educated and wealthy youths are believed to be involved in a series of burglaries and destruction which finally escalated into rape. Juvenile delinquency, nihilism, rituals and orgies. What a mess it was to leave to Commisar Markousis. I didn't quite get why but still, this is a terrifying and well-told tale.
July 15, 2009
The is the first and probably only book I'll read by Nicolas Freeling, the British crime writer responsible for the Van der Valk series – policiers set in Amsterdam during the 60s. Because of the Cats is allegedly one of his best, but I found it fairly dull, both in terms of character and plot. I ordered on the hope it would be as good as some of the other EuroCrime novels (particularly Dominique Manotti's) and I was flatly disappointed. I wouldn't recommend it to my cat.
March 25, 2018
This is a strange book from a good writer. The second, I believe, of his Amsterdam detective Van de Valk stories, it is a ruminative, closely detected story of rich kids gone wrong in a nouveau riche suburb of Amsterdam.
The 'Cats' are girlfriends of a gang of adolescent hoodlums who think nothing of break-and-enter damage to private property and other abuses which escalate.
Rape enters in, as well as parental neglect and city allures for unanchored youth. Freeling, who was British, is writing in the sixties from a British PVO about crime in another European city (Amsterdam).
He has his own ideas about the road to hell in but it's difficult to tell whether they are the author's or the detective's.
I found it interesting sociologically and from a procedural point of view. I don't mind his slow, considered style but the book has some troubling ideas about boys and girls and about society in general, except that some of them are right.
He introduced themes ar that are worthy of investigation (sexism, materialism, the way general bad behavior can lead to rape, for example) and he offers his 'take on the (then) modern world (60s). Things have not gotten better.
Interesting writer. In this case, not terribly powerful, but intriguing.
The 'Cats' are girlfriends of a gang of adolescent hoodlums who think nothing of break-and-enter damage to private property and other abuses which escalate.
Rape enters in, as well as parental neglect and city allures for unanchored youth. Freeling, who was British, is writing in the sixties from a British PVO about crime in another European city (Amsterdam).
He has his own ideas about the road to hell in but it's difficult to tell whether they are the author's or the detective's.
I found it interesting sociologically and from a procedural point of view. I don't mind his slow, considered style but the book has some troubling ideas about boys and girls and about society in general, except that some of them are right.
He introduced themes ar that are worthy of investigation (sexism, materialism, the way general bad behavior can lead to rape, for example) and he offers his 'take on the (then) modern world (60s). Things have not gotten better.
Interesting writer. In this case, not terribly powerful, but intriguing.
April 16, 2023
"Mr. Freeling, are you sure you want to follow your debut by changing the nature of your protagonist?"
"Absolutely. He must lose his mysteries qualities and become mundane and mediocre at detecting."
"Are you sure you want your terribly-important follow-up mystery to be the worst possible topic, a gang of hoodlum youngsters, sounding like the author has never met or heard how youngsters talk?"
"I've never met any youngsters, so of course I do not need to know how they talk or act or think."
"You're sure you want the hero to think it's not a big deal that the young guys r*** an old lady?"
"Surely no one will ever find fault with 'boys will be boys'?"
"...oh dear."
"Heroes with flaws, isn't that literature? So what if our hero is responsible for the death of the only innocent character in the book or hides the sexual promiscuity of the teens from their parents? I am an Author. Keep your bourgeois morality to yourself."
"Thank you, Mr. Freeling, you passed the test. Keep those drama-free mystery novels coming where the case is solved with over 100 pages left, so there's plenty of pointless melodramatic character sketching at the end."
"I shall."
"Absolutely. He must lose his mysteries qualities and become mundane and mediocre at detecting."
"Are you sure you want your terribly-important follow-up mystery to be the worst possible topic, a gang of hoodlum youngsters, sounding like the author has never met or heard how youngsters talk?"
"I've never met any youngsters, so of course I do not need to know how they talk or act or think."
"You're sure you want the hero to think it's not a big deal that the young guys r*** an old lady?"
"Surely no one will ever find fault with 'boys will be boys'?"
"...oh dear."
"Heroes with flaws, isn't that literature? So what if our hero is responsible for the death of the only innocent character in the book or hides the sexual promiscuity of the teens from their parents? I am an Author. Keep your bourgeois morality to yourself."
"Thank you, Mr. Freeling, you passed the test. Keep those drama-free mystery novels coming where the case is solved with over 100 pages left, so there's plenty of pointless melodramatic character sketching at the end."
"I shall."
October 29, 2023
Freeling is a genius. Always quirky, always interesting, always challenging. He is wonderfully opinionated and never shirks saying what should or must be said (“If you put moral pressure on people till they feel there’s no way out but to kill themselves, it’s as much of a murder as a plastic bomb”).
I look at all the books a hack like James Patterson sells and I look at Freeling. Perhaps he is an acquired taste, but I think he is so good because he makes me think and speculate. To examine my opinions again.
And that is always a good thing.
I look at all the books a hack like James Patterson sells and I look at Freeling. Perhaps he is an acquired taste, but I think he is so good because he makes me think and speculate. To examine my opinions again.
And that is always a good thing.
October 15, 2020
This story was based on a real case happening in Bloemendaal, a Nouveau riche suburb of Amsterdam and an actual seaside town one can visit to this day. What was intriguing about the story was how bored rich kids had been forming bizarre gangs and getting away with murder.
This series of author Nicolas Freeling was later made into a British crime drama series, featuring Detective Van Der Valk from a precinct in Amsterdam.
This series of author Nicolas Freeling was later made into a British crime drama series, featuring Detective Van Der Valk from a precinct in Amsterdam.
July 4, 2023
Another good story from Freeling. The unconventional, cerebral cop, Van der Valk, talks us through the intricacies of the Dutch criminal justice system and a series of crimes that owe more to conspiracy theories than usual run of the mill criminal activity. A small, smug town is torn apart when a series of offences in Amsterdam are brought close to home.
Spoiler alert: it is not true to say that no cats are harmed in this book…….
Spoiler alert: it is not true to say that no cats are harmed in this book…….
March 20, 2021
This was probably inventive for its time, a police investigator with a psychological process of solving crime. The story has outdated aspects and is full of misogyny. Not going to read more of this series. Oh well
February 15, 2017
Dutch mystery story
June 20, 2017
reread.
May 10, 2021
A cold and dark Dutch mystery!
May 1, 2023
Good short story
May 29, 2023
Even taking into account the book was written in 1963 I was shocked by Van Der Valk's attitude and the overall political incorrectness of this crime story.
December 18, 2019
A group of over-privileged teenage boys from a shiny new seaside resort town has taken to committing crimes to relieve their boredom. Property crimes at first, but violence soon follows, and Van der Valk is called to investigate.
The affluent families are successful in their businesses but disengaged from their children’s lives. The teenagers, being teenagers, are hostile, amoral and resentful, encouraged and abetted in their behavior by a local club owner who befriends them, and by their group of girlfriends. Van der Valk is aided in his investigation by Feodora, a sharp, no nonsense prostitute who knows the town and its folks very well.
The ending is a bit atypically (for Freeling) dramatic. It’s an interesting read but not gripping.
The affluent families are successful in their businesses but disengaged from their children’s lives. The teenagers, being teenagers, are hostile, amoral and resentful, encouraged and abetted in their behavior by a local club owner who befriends them, and by their group of girlfriends. Van der Valk is aided in his investigation by Feodora, a sharp, no nonsense prostitute who knows the town and its folks very well.
The ending is a bit atypically (for Freeling) dramatic. It’s an interesting read but not gripping.
February 23, 2015
Nicolas Freeling's Van der Valk novels "A Long Silence" and "Gun Before Butter", which I have recently re-read, are masterpieces of the crime novel genre (see my reviews here and here . Alas, the most recent re-read of what I remembered was one of my favorite Freeling's novels, "Because of the Cats", has been quite a disappointment. Maybe because this is just the author's second published book (but quite likely the first one that he wrote), out of about 30, and although it is an unusual and engrossing mystery as well as a vivid portrayal of a well-to-do segment of an European society in the early 1960s, the writing is not yet as exceptionally good as in the later novels and the characterizations are not as sharp.
Chief Inspector Van der Valk investigates a series of Amsterdam break-ins apparently committed by a youth gang from an affluent Dutch seaside town. The boys burglarize homes and businesses, destroy property, and even rape a woman (the woman later reports that one of the perpetrators said to another that "the cats won't like it", hence the title). The suspects - apparently well-brought-up sons of some of the most influential figures in the bourgeois town and students at a university - are quite easy to find, yet Van der Valk has serious difficulties in obtaining a proof of the boys' complicity and in establishing the motive. Meanwhile, one of the boys dies in suspicious circumstances.
Van der Valk's tense conversations with the boys' parents are highlights of the novel. While successful businesspeople are total failures as parents, the youths, in turn, are completely alienated from their parents and from what is really important in life. Not much has changed since 1960s, after all. On the other hand, I find two threads rather cheap - one features Feodora, a whore with a heart of gold, the other has the father of one of the boys helping Van der Valk. They would belong in a bestseller rather than in a serious mystery book.
Three stars.
Chief Inspector Van der Valk investigates a series of Amsterdam break-ins apparently committed by a youth gang from an affluent Dutch seaside town. The boys burglarize homes and businesses, destroy property, and even rape a woman (the woman later reports that one of the perpetrators said to another that "the cats won't like it", hence the title). The suspects - apparently well-brought-up sons of some of the most influential figures in the bourgeois town and students at a university - are quite easy to find, yet Van der Valk has serious difficulties in obtaining a proof of the boys' complicity and in establishing the motive. Meanwhile, one of the boys dies in suspicious circumstances.
Van der Valk's tense conversations with the boys' parents are highlights of the novel. While successful businesspeople are total failures as parents, the youths, in turn, are completely alienated from their parents and from what is really important in life. Not much has changed since 1960s, after all. On the other hand, I find two threads rather cheap - one features Feodora, a whore with a heart of gold, the other has the father of one of the boys helping Van der Valk. They would belong in a bestseller rather than in a serious mystery book.
Three stars.
July 15, 2012
Nicolas Freeling, who regrettably passed away in 2003 while still writing, has left us with some of the most intriguing crime novels ever written. For reasons best known to himself, but which have ended up delighting his readers, this English-born novelist chose to write stories based on the cases of a Dutch chief inspector called Van der Valk, or a French policeman named Henri Castang. Because of the Cats is a Van der Valk novel set in Amsterdam and the nearby suburb of Bloemendaal.
As always, the novel concentrates on Van der Valk's thought processes as he muddles through to the solution of the crimes in his unorthodox fashion. As he does so, Freeling is quite happy to have him also examine certain facets of modern society such as, in this case, the effect of wealth on the children of busy, well-to-do parents. With his earthy approach to life on and off the streets and his innate understanding of some of the darker sides of human nature, Van der Valk not only never fails to "catch his man" (as is natural), but he also never fails to entertain us grandly, leaving us with much food for thought. That being said, he is not the easiest author (or detective) to read, and the level and intricacy of the language used provides yet another level of enjoyment for those willing to follow along. And by the time you reach the end of the book, you will understand that it was, indeed, because of the cats!
Comment
As always, the novel concentrates on Van der Valk's thought processes as he muddles through to the solution of the crimes in his unorthodox fashion. As he does so, Freeling is quite happy to have him also examine certain facets of modern society such as, in this case, the effect of wealth on the children of busy, well-to-do parents. With his earthy approach to life on and off the streets and his innate understanding of some of the darker sides of human nature, Van der Valk not only never fails to "catch his man" (as is natural), but he also never fails to entertain us grandly, leaving us with much food for thought. That being said, he is not the easiest author (or detective) to read, and the level and intricacy of the language used provides yet another level of enjoyment for those willing to follow along. And by the time you reach the end of the book, you will understand that it was, indeed, because of the cats!
Comment
July 23, 2024
re-re-re-re-re read....
This was always a favourite of mine, back in the day. It is still a really good mystery, Scandinavian Noir before it became a trend.
I'll review it on YouTube at some stage.
This was always a favourite of mine, back in the day. It is still a really good mystery, Scandinavian Noir before it became a trend.
I'll review it on YouTube at some stage.
August 6, 2025
Not the PBS Masterpiece Mystery van Der Valk detective but the setting is still in Amsterdam. First published in 1963. This Van Der Valk is a canny detective with a tendency to philosophize of the state of Dutch culture and politics.
March 31, 2011
Sordid, tedious, could not finish last 25 pp Never again author!
February 16, 2013
I gave up!
May 3, 2013
liked it. It aged a bit but still very enjoyable
Read
May 8, 2013Good enough to read a lot more books by this author.
May 28, 2017
Leuk, spannend boek. Leuk om te lezen hoe het verhaal zich langzaam ontwikkeld. Soms wordt er iets te veel uitgelegd, dat had voor mij wel achterwege mogen blijven.
Want to read
December 24, 2018Synopsis: Chief Inspector Piet Van der Valk of the Amsterdam police has a teenage gang on his hands; he eventually unravels the mystery.
May 30, 2011
Gave up on page 65.
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews